


The Perfect Afternoon

by bzarcher



Series: Widow/Tracer Fics [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Flying, Lena has a birthday, Meaningful gifts, Meaningless gifts, Podfic Welcome, Post-Talon!Widowmaker, Widowtracer, gliding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8468839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher
Summary: After being touched (and embarassed) by Lena's earlier gift giving, Widowmaker has to try to find something with the power to surprise her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a direct sequel to [The Box, The Gift, and The Gremlin.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8361799/chapters/19154683) There are a few references / jokes that don't quite make sense without it. Enjoy!

The more Widowmaker considered the underwear Tracer had given her, the more she had a problem: how to return the gift in kind.

Neither of them were exactly shy about their bodies, after all, so simply purchasing Tracer – purchasing _Lena_ \- something skimpy or revealing had little power to shock or embarrass her.

Going for something with a historical bent to it, like the Marie Antoinette panties, had been a similar bust – mostly because, as Amélie had learned, Lena owned almost every single candidate already.

Union Jack briefs? Of course.

“God Save the Queen” panties? She had _four_ different sets, and Amélie’s initial attempt had simply added a fifth. (Though, at least, the one she’d purchased had been in a color Lena hadn’t owned already. That would have been unforgivable.)

“Keep Calm and Carry On” thong? Naturally. At least Lena had tipped her hand to that one by wearing them to bed one evening.

Amélie thought she’d finally hit on something when she found a pair of panties marked “ **LONDON FIRE BRIGADE: PULL DOWN IN CASE OF EMERGENCY** ,” but Lena had just giggled and put on a little show modeling them – which _had_ led to something rather enjoyable, but still not quite the desired effect.

She’d racked her brain to the point of exhaustion for almost a year after she’d finally dealt with their Gremlin problem, finally admitting defeat and deciding to look for a more conventional gift for Lena’s upcoming birthday.

In the end, Amélie settled on something that she thought would be sentimental and meaningful. She hadn’t really cared about Lena’s birthday when their relationship began – she hadn’t really cared about almost anything when they began – but she wanted to make up for it with this.

* * *

They were sitting on top of one of the launch gantry platforms at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, in what had become ‘their spot’ overlooking the Strait when Amélie handed Lena the orange envelope.

“Oh? What’s this, then?” Lena gently turned the card over, a smile spreading on her face as she found her name neatly inscribed in dark blue ink.

Amélie smiled back, then leaned in to gently kiss her. “Happy birthday, _mon amour_.”

Lena’s eyes softened. “You remembered?”

“I asked Athena,” Amélie nodded to the card, “you should open it.”

Lena’s eyes widened as she opened the envelope and drew out a slip of paper, her hands shaking slightly. “ _Amélie_ …”

“You told me how much you missed it,” she explained softly, “and why. I thought this might be the next best thing.”

Lena slipped the paper back in the envelope, carefully tucking it into her bomber jacket’s map pocket, her eyes filling with tears. “That is…I can’t even….”

Amélie’s brows knitted upwards as she tilted her head slightly, confusion welling up inside of her. She had thought this would be a _good_ gift… “You’re crying. Is something wrong?”

“No! No, no, luv, it’s…I just…” Lena couldn’t seem to find the words, so she embraced her girlfriend instead, the tears leaving warm tracks against the Widowmaker’s cooler skin. “That is the most incredible, sweetest thing I think anyone has ever done for me.”

Blushing slightly at both the compliment and the sudden rush of relief that her attempt at a ‘real’ gift hadn’t backfired, Amélie slid her hands around the smaller woman, gently kissing a few of her tears away. “My pleasure.”

Lena laughed softly, sniffing away a few more tears. “So you’re coming with me, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

* * *

It surprised Amélie that after so much effort trying to fluster Lena with exotic or gag gifts, it was a simple piece of paper that made her blush and barely able to speak. She didn’t quite go to the lengths of concealing it that Amélie had used to lock away “The Underwear,” but the orange envelope and the paper it held never seemed to leave Lena’s side: always in her bomber jacket when ‘working’, or placed in a pocketbook or purse when dressed casually. Lena rarely mentioned it, but Amélie felt her sluggish heartbeat thump just a bit faster when she occasionally caught Lena pulling the envelope out and lightly touching the paper within before she carefully tucked the card away again, a wistful smile and a faraway look in her eyes.

It was almost two months before they’d finally had a chance to take a drive out to one of the small civil airfields near the northern edge of the peninsula. Lena carefully navigated her way through the streets leading to the hangar complex, and finally came to a stop in front of a large, blue steel building.

**SOARING HEIGHTS GLIDER RENTALS**

Lena had dressed in casual clothes with her Chronal Accelerator’s core stripped down to the bare minimum configuration and hidden under her jacket – not enough to allow her to rewind or blink more than once per hour without the extra power and support equipment, but a lot easier to conceal. Amélie had dressed similarly, but with the addition of some makeup to make her skin color a bit less alarming, and contacts to change her eye color from bright yellow to a darker hazel.

A man was coming out of the hangar’s office door before Lena had even turned off the engine of her coupe.

“Good morning! Are you my ten o’clock rental?”

Lena nodded once they’d both climbed out of the car, locking it up with a tap on her keyfob. “That’s us! I’m Lena, and this is Amélie.”

“Wonderful!” The man – “David” – according to the nametag stitched to the breast of his shirt, offered a hand for each of them to shake. “Come on in, we’ll get you checked out and up in the air.”

Two prop planes rested on one side of the hangar, while the main floor was dominated by four different unpowered gliders – two with a single seat, two with a tandem cockpit.

David led them to a small desk with a computer sitting on it, producing a clipboard of forms for them to fill out. “Now, Lena, I understand you’re a rated pilot?”

She nodded, a small, confident smile on her face, and the look in her eyes made something in Amélie’s chest feel tight. “Yup. A little under 1,500 hours in jets, around 400 of which was test pilot work. I’ve got a decent amount of dead stick experience, too.”

“Excellent – go ahead and fill your information out, and I’ll give you a basic explanation of our two-seaters. We have a simulator I’ll check you out on for about an hour to make sure you’ll be comfortable on your choice of glider – though, with your experience, I’m sure it’ll be fine – and we’ll get you folks in the air after we do some safety checks.”

“Brilliant,” Lena agreed, then bent to fill out the paperwork. “This will be Amé’s first flight with me – I was thinking I might show her a few fun tricks I picked up over the years.”

David chuckled, winking at Amélie. “Well, depending on how enthusiastic your girlfriend is, I hope you ate a light breakfast.”

“I doubt she’ll be terribly cruel,” Amélie smiled back, trying to hide the slightly shocked pleasure she’d gotten from this total stranger recognizing them as being in a relationship, “but I suspect it will be exciting.”

“That it will,” the older man agreed, “your gift card is for a tandem, basic instructions, and tow up. From there – it’s your aircraft, just please do me a favor and don’t bend it.”

Lena laughed, and within two hours they were sitting in a graceful-looking glider, both in flight suits and helmets, while David sat in one of the prop planes, carefully towing them out to the runway.

Lena had lost her flight status due to concerns about the Accelerator interacting with the complex electronics and controls in a fighter jet. The simple mechanical controls and linkages of the glider posed no such problems. The only electronic device on board, beyond basic indicators, was the radio giving them information on what was going on around them as Lena carefully familiarized herself with slight differences between the simulator and the real aircraft.

_-Tower, this is November Oscar 5933, requesting clearance for takeoff and glider tow for Mike Delta 7432._

_-Roger, November Oscar 5933, you are cleared on Runway 2-Right for Normal Assisted Takeoff._

_-Copy, thank you Tower._

Within a few minutes, the tow plane was rising off the ground, and the glider followed, Lena bringing the wheels up and carefully guiding the unpowered craft into proper position for a gentle climb out of the tow plane’s wake, until they’d reached the planned release height.

_-Mike Delta 7432, this is November Oscar 5933, ready for cable release._

Amélie couldn’t see Lena’s face, but the tone of her voice said everything about the smile she must have been wearing as she keyed her mic.

“Roger, thank you. Mike Delta 7432 releasing tether in 3…2…1…now!”

There was a soft ‘bump’ from beneath the body of the aircraft as the anchor for the tow cable released, and as the tow plane moved away with a quick waggle of its wings. Lena put the glider into a banking turn.

_-We have a good release, and it’s a beautiful day for flying. Enjoy yourselves, ladies! We’ll see you on the ground in a few hours._

The most striking thing about flying in the glider to Amélie was the quiet – with no engine and very little wind, the only sounds beyond her own breathing were the slight whispers of air passing the cockpit, and Lena’s delighted laughter as she began to run through a few maneuvers to take the measure of the craft.

For the better part of three hours, Lena took them through the assigned flight area, explaining and demonstrating many of the maneuvers and techniques she’d mastered over her career as a pilot. The glider didn’t have the ability to pull off some of the maneuvers that Lena might have used in a dogfight, but she was able squeeze far more out of the wide-winged airframe than Amélie had expected, occasionally grabbing a thermal to help them soar back upwards before starting a new set of maneuvers.

Lena took them through an intricate dance of rising and falling loops, spiraling twists, end over end rolls, and at one point entered into a deliberate stall, making the plane spin around itself like a top as they fell with a whoop of glee, then recovering into a dive so steep that for a moment Amélie feared they might lose control before Lena did something that made the glider pop up onto its tail like a striking snake and then settle back down into docile, level flight.

They finished their afternoon in the sky with a series of long banking spirals as Lena bled off speed and lined up for her landing approach, checking in briefly with the tower along the way to get clearance to descend. Their graceful return to the earth was a perfect end to the day that Lena capped off with a textbook landing, the glider’s landing gear gently scraping against the ground as they returned to the airfield, a small truck driving up a few moments after the aircraft had stopped to tow them back to the hangar.

Lena pulled the release for the cockpit canopy, opening it to fresh air before pulling off her helmet, and Amélie did the same a moment later.

“That was delightful, _chérie._ I’d never realized that flying could be anything like that.”

Lena looked back to her, tears in her eyes once again. “It’s the purest way – just you, the wind, and the stick. Screaming along in a jet is a bloody great time, too, but that was…amazing isn’t even the word. It’s the closest you can get to being an angel, up there. You’ve no idea _how much_ I missed this. _Thank you._ I can’t even tell you…”

Amélie smiled back, a few tears beginning to pool in her own eyes. “It’s all right, _ma coeur._ I think I understand.”


End file.
